Looks like a colossal oil find in North Dakota, this should help bring fuel prices down. If not now just for the knowledge we have plenty of oil for the future and in an area where the enviro-whackos can't tie it up forever.
The U.S. Is Poised to Hit a New Oil Gusher
Oil drillers have their eye on a vast oil field in and around North Dakota, which promises a steady flow of domestic crude for years.
By Jim Ostroff, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
March 17, 2008RELATED FORECASTS HELPFUL LINKS Marathon Oil
EOG Resources
Brigham Exploration
Crescent Point Energy Trust
A new black gold rush is under way, this time in North Dakota. The potential payoff is huge -- up to 100 billion barrels of oil. That’s twice the size of Alaska’s reserves and potentially enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for two decades.
Until now, the obstacles to production seemed overwhelming. The crude oil is locked away in rocks that are buried miles underground in the Bakken Play, a field that stretches into Montana and Saskatchewan, Canada.
But times have changed. High oil prices and new technology make it worth the effort. Computer analysis and remote sensing systems, plus smart drills that can probe horizontally or snake left and right, vastly improve the odds of locating new pools and putting them into production. And though oil is unlikely to remain priced at current stratospheric levels, prices won’t drop to much lower levels, which happened several times since the 1970s, and cause new exploration to dry up. Even if prices fell by half, many barrels of oil could still be produced -- profitably -- from the region.
An official government survey of the Bakken region's oil treasure trove is due out next month. The report is expected to play it very conservatively, because it will confine estimates to the amount of oil that likely can be produced profitably based on last year’s oil prices. It will also not take into account any further technological advances that might make it even easier to extract more oil.
"The Bakken is much like the enormous natural gas field that sat for many years under and around Dallas until people figured out the geology and how to drill it out economically," says Lucian Pugliaresi, president of the Energy Policy Research Foundation.
There's at least a smell of the "Old West" as petroleum companies rush to stake their claims in the Bakken Play. Marathon Oil recently acquired about 200,000 acres in the area and will drill about 300 oil wells within five years. Brigham Exploration and Crescent Point Energy Trust are also interested in some of the action. EOG Resources alone figures it can produce 80 million barrels of oil from its Bakken field.
Figure on at least five years before the oil starts flowing in large volumes. A lot of work will need to be done first. In addition to installing drilling gear, firms must build supporting infrastructure, including roads, pipelines as well as new water, sewage and sanitation systems to meet the needs of workers and other area residents.
Note that the Bakken Play region is not an environmentally sensitive area similar to Alaskan tundra that has stymied much oil field development because of concerns about damage to the fragile environment. Still, some environmental protests are sure to emerge and may gum up development for a while, but they’re unlikely to stop oil production from the Bakken fields.
For weekly updates on topics to improve your business decisionmaking, click here.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2008 11:11AM by Ed.
It's not exactly a "find" - rather that today's high oil prices now make it economically feasible to extract oil from this large but difficult-to-get-at field. It's been known for ages. Just couldn't be got for the price oil was commanding before now.
It says @ 50.00 per barrel it is profitable. We have the new technology to get it. So let the new supply enter the worlds inventories and watch it influence world prices.
Ed Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It says @ 50.00 per barrel it is profitable. We
> have the new technology to get it. So let the new
> supply enter the worlds inventories and watch it
> influence world prices.
The world's inventories? How about the USA's inventories, so we can quit buying a big chunk of middle eastern oil. If we're gonna be paying thru the nose anyway, I'd rather all the investment and new jobs in drilling and pipeline transport be kept circulating in *OUR* economy.
Be very careful what you wish for. I'd argue that some sustained high prices are desperately needed to fuel investment in domestically supplied alternatives - new nuclear plants, solar/wind, electric cars, clean coal, whatever.
Now... I would also argue that our governments would have been better off maintaining high prices domestically by applying high taxes on fuel and reducing taxes elsewhere. The Europeans have done this to some degree. And surprise of all surprises - they drive smaller cars. Instead, we wait for supplies to tighten and for OPEC to force up the prices - and so we end up funding governments in the middle east instead of our own. But, then again, nobody ever won an election by offering to increase fuel taxes. Stupid and shortsighted.
If we have 50 years of oil left, then good... I really hope we do. Because it will take that long to convert 100 years of infrastructure built around cheap oil. Better to start the process while we still have time.
Lip service and good intentions never develop anything worthwhile or real. Economic necessity is the mother of invention.
Getting oil out of the Bakken shale is more like squeezing toothpaste out of that tube that you forgot in your dub-kit. The wells in western ND are the old-style with the pump on top. The yield per well is often so low that rather than building pipelines to connect them it is picked up by trucks and delivered to central terminals.
When a barrel of west-texas crude went for $12, ND crude fetched something like $4/barrel. At those prices, there was no reason to do the expensive horizontal drilling required to extract oil from this very thin layer (a few feet). Now, at 20times the price, it starts to become economically feasibl (just like the Alberta tar-sands).
Finally, someone with intelligence. My hero SteveM you’re right, the system works so well in Europe. Everybody saves so much energy. And those little cars are just so cute. It is just so wonderful!
I suggest we also apply the “conservation tax” to aviation fuel. Let's artificially jack up the price of fuel to force a reduction in use in this industry too. Let's see, an additional three dollar a gallon "Green Tax" on Avgas or JetA to put it up to $9.00 per gallon. Wonderful, less traffic to look out for..... less pollution too because that should conveniently put the rest of the airlines out of business which is a good thing because we could then become reacquainted with trains for our long distance travel.
Still with me SteveM? Got that For Sale sign on your Aircraft yet?
It is my opinion, that in a capitalist society, it is the market place that should determine a person's choices, not the government's desire to change behavior. The government is there to protect property rights and a stable market place (except in the US where the Federal government has chosen to give entitlements to undeserving persons). So the logic of the government taxing everything in order to change people's behavior will be counter productive to the market place.
So gas is $7/gal due to taxes (which will become more entitlements to more undeserving people); therefore, less people move about spending money. This in turn leads to less jobs and less money in the marketplace. To create more jobs, the government hires more people to the point we are then a SOCIALIST society.
Of course we are heading that direction anyway, but I don't think government taxation of gasoline is a good idea. Let people decide if they can afford the SUV for themselves.
Aha! So we've moved the discussion from Alex's rant to a new thread. Awesome. We still get to debate the relative merits of capitalism vs. socialism. It must be an election year.
I remember as a teen ager, my father made a big deal of investing in shares of a natural gas well in Texas for each of his five children. It was supposed to pay for our college educations and then be a nice financial buffer. However, they tried three times to drill it, and every time the hole collapsed or for some other reason it didn't work. So I am still the titled lessor to 1/8 of an acre of mineral rights, and every two years I get a $100 check from the the lessee.
Perhaps one day natural gas prices will rise to the point where they'll try again, and I finally be able to put myself through college. Or, since I already did that, maybe I'll just buy me a new plane instead!
Wow GM... I did not see that implication. Sheesh... Your light of your brilliance is blinding me.
Quickly to summarize your argument (if you want to call it that)...
a) I don't like that idea because I don't like small European cars.
b) I think that my right to cheap avgas (and presumably gas in general) outweighs all other considerations because I LIKE UNLIMITED CONSUMPTION.
And yes.. the Europeans do use less energy than we do.
Guess what... that's exactly why US Autoworkers (and Canadian) are scrambling for their jobs as we speak - because with cheap gas for the last 20 years, they haven't had to learn to build good small cars. So now they're having to learn in a panic, and are living with the consequences.
Guess what else... The price of gas IS going even higher - it's just a question of when, so you might as well get used to it. The only thing between us and even higher prices is a reduction in consumption. There's no more oil being made.. I thought that should be bleeding obvious.
And if I have to give up my plane (or buy a smaller, more fuel efficient one) so that my kids and grandkids can still afford to drive a car in 20 or 50 years, then I think it's pretty darn reasonable trade.
Springer:
Yours is a better argument, except that the market has some major built-in lags. Supply has and will drive the price up... a lot.. Again it's just a matter of when - not if.
My concern is that technology development lags the market. Prices have to stay high a long time for alternatives to develop. And the more entrenched the technology, the longer the lag. Cheap oil is heavily heavily entrenched. The lag will be on the scale of decades.
By the time the market reacts, it may well be too late for technology to react, without creating a MAJOR economic crisis, or worse.
I'm sure everybody here knows the story of Easter Island. There's a classic case where the market did not react quickly enough.
Ahhh yes. The save some oil for the kiddies argument. I would suggest you not get a smaller plane, you best park it and sell it it if you really believe what you're saying. You must feel guilty as hell flying anything wasting your grandkids precious resources. Or are you simply buying carbon credits from Al Gore's sham company to ease some of the guilt of using and polluting?
For your information, there is 100 years of oil alone in our own Gulf of Mexico of which further exploration and extraction is off limits to us so Politicians can keep their jobs. Do you realize China is pumping oil and creative drilling toward the U.S. in the Gulf at this very moment, just a short distance from Cuba? Do you know how many centuries of oil are under the Artic? Yes the same Artic that Russia has recently “staked” claims to? What you will see first before we run out of oil is high food prices and food shortages due to the whacko’s drive for “alternative” bio energy sources. It doesn’t seem to matter that it takes 1.3 gallons of energy to make 1 gallon of E-85. You know, E-85, the feel good fuel that gets 10-15% less M.P.G in your E-85 designed car than a gallon of gasoline. Now that’s conservation and using our resources to the fullest extent.
You Libs need to accept the fact oil is going to be around for some time no matter how hard you try to do away with it. The world very simply requires it, from the shoes on our feet to transportation, to heating our homes. It won't go away. It will still be located (in unimaginable places today), refined and delivered to us by companies whose sole purpose is to do so, while making a profit.
My (german made) car gets 14mpg city and 20 highway, and that's with a tailwind. I paid a hefty gas guzzler tax on it (which I still think is BS because it seats as many as a Hummer and gets better mpg). Not all European car companies have mastered the production of fuel efficient vehicles!
Wow... did I touch a nerve here Earl? A Lib? I was called a Lib? Oh the horror. I better go buy a Hummer and an NRA membership so I don't get insulted like that any more.
First... unlike your prior posts, you do make a few good points here.
- E85 from corn is idiotic - no debate. You'll have to explain exactly when I brought that up as a solution. Or were you hoping I would? There may be some hope in making ethanol from waste sugars (cellulose) if we figure out an efficient way to do it. And wind power is limited, and solar is limited. You're right... no easy alternates. That's the big sticky problem - there are no easy alternates. Nuclear's about the best.
- Yes, oil will be around for a long time. It will... but it will become very very expensive.
- Flying is plane is entirely hypocritical. No debate. Although I do make up for it a bit by driving a small hybrid and living 3 minutes from my office. Although I have no doubt that in your view this makes me even more of a lily livered, pinko, commie, Gore loving, tree huggin, limp wristed, whatever... did I miss any? Guess what Earl? I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over it.
- Liberal? No... I vote Conservative. Although if I were American, I couldn't vote for Bush; he's as smart as the horse he rode in on. McCain seems a better. Dems... maybe.
So... now that we each know where we fit into the social demographic, tell me a few things:
1. Exactly how many barrels ARE under the arctic? Please... share your drilling results. Unless it's 10 times the entire proven, unproven and consumed capacity of the Ghawar field my point stands. Because China and India are going to fighting tooth and nail for all of it.
2. Similarly, I'd like to know where you get your data on the GOM. Was it the same place GW Bush got his info on WMD? I.E. If I hope, believe and have faith, I'm sure it's there?
Yes... there's oil in both places... and in the tar sands, and the oil shale, and it can be made from coal, and so on... You're right. But it's ALL deep, remote or costly to process. It's all expensive. The easy,cheap stuff in mostly gone.
And you've now got a few billion people on the other side of the planet who have a rapidly building military, financed by our gluttony (and the Iraq war), who've decided that want their share too.
Myself... I wouldn't be investing in any Hummer plants any time soon.
ANTHONY, Texas (CNN) -- Texas may be best known for "Big Oil." But the oil that could some day make a dent in the country's use of fossil fuels is small. Microscopic, in fact: algae. Literally and figuratively, this is green fuel.
Plant physiologist Glen Kertz believes algae can some day be competitive as a source for biofuel.
1 of 3 "Algae is the ultimate in renewable energy," Glen Kertz, president and CEO of Valcent Products, told CNN while conducting a tour of his algae greenhouse on the outskirts of El Paso.
Kertz, a plant physiologist and entrepreneur, holds about 20 patents. And he is psyched about the potential algae holds, both as an energy source and as a way to deal with global warming.
"We are a giant solar collecting system. We get the bulk of our energy from the sunshine," said Kertz.
Algae are among the fastest growing plants in the world, and about 50 percent of their weight is oil. That lipid oil can be used to make biodiesel for cars, trucks, and airplanes. Watch how pond scum can be turned into fuel »
Most people know algae as "pond scum." And until recently, most energy research and development projects used ponds to grow it.
But instead of ponds, Valcent uses a closed, vertical system, growing the algae in long rows of moving plastic bags. The patented system is called Vertigro, a joint venture with Canadian alternative energy company Global Green Solutions. The companies have invested about $5 million in the Texas facility.
"A pond has a limited amount of surface area for solar absorption," said Kertz.
Don't Miss
In Depth: Solutions
SciTechBlog
"By going vertical, you can get a lot more surface area to expose cells to the sunlight. It keeps the algae hanging in the sunlight just long enough to pick up the solar energy they need to produce, to go through photosynthesis," he said.
Kertz said he can produce about 100,000 gallons of algae oil a year per acre, compared to about 30 gallons per acre from corn; 50 gallons from soybeans.
Using algae as an alternative fuel is not a new idea. The U.S. Department of Energy studied it for about 18 years, from 1978 to 1996. But according to Al Darzins of the DOE's National Renewable Energy Lab, in 1996 the feds decided that algae oil could never compete economically with fossil fuels.
The price of a barrel of oil in 1996? About 20 bucks!
Government scientists experimented with algae in open ponds in California, Hawaii, and in Roswell, New Mexico.
But that involved a lot of land area, with inherent problems of evaporation and contamination from other plant species and various flying and swimming critters. Darzins said NREL switched from algae research to focus on cellulosic ethanol. That's ethanol made from plants like switchgrass and plant stover -- the leaves and stalks left after a harvest -- but not edible crops such as corn and soybeans.
Valcent research scientist Aga Pinowska said there are about 65,000 known algae species, with perhaps hundreds of thousands more still to be identified.
A big part of the research at the west Texas facility involves determining what type of algae produces what type of fuel. One species may be best suited for jet fuel, while the oil content of another may be more efficient for truck diesel.
In the Vertigro lab, Pinowska studies the care and feeding of algae for just such specifics. She said even small changes in the nutrients that certain algae get can help create a more efficient oil content.
And she said a knowledge of algae's virtues goes way back.
"Even the Aztecs knew it was beneficial; they used it as a high protein food," said Pinowska.
The other common commercial use of algae today is as a health food drink, usually sold as "Spirulina."
I'm too sexy for my pond
And who knew that single celled plants could be such "hotties" when it comes to sex? Kertz said it's a real "algae orgy" under the microscope.
Some algae reproduce sexually, some asexually, while many combine both modes. In some green algae the type of reproduction may be altered if there are changes in environmental conditions, such as lack of moisture or nutrients.
Intriguing details like that keep Kertz and other scientists searching for more and different algae. While dusty west Texas may not be the best hunting grounds, he said he is always on the lookout for samples in puddles, streams or ponds.
Locating algae processing plants intelligently can add to their efficiency. Locating algae facilities next to carbon producing power plants, or manufacturing plants, for instance, the plants could sequester the C02 they create and use those emissions to help grow the algae, which need the C02 for photosynthesis.
And after more than a decade hiatus, the U.S. government is back in the algae game. The 2007 Energy Security and Independence Act includes language promoting the use of algae for biofuels. From the Pentagon to Minnesota to New Zealand, both governments and private companies are exploring the use of algae to produce fuel.
But Al Darzins of the National Renewable Energy Lab said the world is still probably 5 to 10 years away from any substantial use of biofuels.
"There's not any one system that anyone has chosen yet. Whatever it is has to be dirt, dirt cheap," said Darzins. E-mail to a friend
All About Global Climate Change • Alternative Energy Technology • Alternative Fuel Vehicles
Consider that when oil was $10 a barrel you could buy a new full sized car for $4500, a 1200 sq ft house for $45,000 and now you figure that $100 oil is expensive? Put things in perspective, it still costs the same.
There are still lots of oil reserves but it will need some technical advances to be produced. This situation is nothing new, the technical challenges of the past to produce deep, tight formations have been overcome, the production of Alberta oilsands are being produced in the millions of barrels per day profitably. The great risk is the diversion of efforts and money to fight false problems such as "global warming" and such.
Like others have pointed out, consuming food to produce fuel is insane.
Steve, read this article before you drive your small Hybrid (guilt reliever) to the airport to fly your plane. While it is from one individual from Connecticut University, other studies state similar facts. I know, my fact research is not the same as others. It is interesting. Hybrids are not the answer either.
Chris Demorro
The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care.
Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.
Before we delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, we will use the most popular hybrid on the market, the Toyota Prius.
The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000 revolutions per minute.
Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you, it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right?
You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway.
Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second.
The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second.
This has dropped the Prius’s EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs less then half what the Prius costs.
However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn’t be writing this article. It gets much worse.
Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius.
As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. Nickel is highly poisonous in the manufacturing state and produced tons of waste in the process.
The plant that is is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery is located in Canada and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually.
The nickel produced by this non eco friendly plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe.
From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan.
Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?
Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.
When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.
Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.
The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.
So, if you are really an environmentalist - ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available - a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed over gas mileage - buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot.
One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses.
Steve M Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > 2. Similarly, I'd like to know where you get your
> data on the GOM. Was it the same place GW Bush
> got his info on WMD?
>
>
Steve. I suggest you research the speeches of Bill Clinton and First Lady/Senator Hillary Clinton. Some you would swear George Bush wrote them. You will very quickly realize that they all got their information from the same intelligence. Sorry, you don't have a leg to stand on there. You just don't remember. Many are taped and are on the Internet. Refresh yourself.
About the Prius: The battery cell in that car is only good for 4-5 years and costs ~$7-8 thousand to replace. So if you're planning on selling a Prius after 3-4 years, expect to take a beating the resell price. I wouldn't expect to get over 7-8K for a 3 year old model. I can buy a lot of gas with that depreciation. Off to get in my Navigator, to the airport for my 16gph Lance.
Gas goes up much more, I'll just lay off another lazy employee. :)
Steve M Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> 2. Similarly, I'd like to know where you get your
> data on the GOM. Was it the same place GW Bush
> got his info on WMD?
OOOPS, Here is Hillary telling the world about the WMDs and nukes when she voted yes.
That hybrid-study is very biased and seriously flawed. They made a lot "assumptions" to come up with the numbers they wanted. It's just a lot of made up BS. Among other things, they presumed that the Hummer's useful life was in excess of 300,000 miles and the Prius was considered end-of-life at 100,000.
So go dig up the data they use to back up this so-called study and see for yourself.
I ain't no liberal, but we do have a hybrid Lexus RX400h. It's fantastic vehicle, comfortable, luxurious, quiet and a joy to drive and at California gas prices, we will recoup the purchase cost delta between it and the RX350 in about 3 years, or less if gas prices continue to climb. As a bonus, it pollutes a lot less than anything in its class.
The batteries last a long time. They are warranted for 100,000 miles or 10 years. In the older Prius, they are nothing more than NiMh D-cells!!! There's about 250 of them stacked in series, which are readily available in that quantity for about $1800.
And yes, there are many Prius on the road with 100,000 miles or more on tham. No, the Prius doesn't take a big hit in the depreciation arena either.
My neighbor has a Prius and loves it. He gets about 48mpg in it. Seems pretty reasonable to me. It's not a bad car to ride around in either. It is reasonably comfortable and certainly one doesn't suffer commuting to work in it.
So like so much other stuff on the interweb, just a lot of prattle.
Somehow, I know when I wrote the I drove I hybrid that somebody would bring up that study... yes I knew about it. GM, I do do my research. AND i look at both sides - not just the one that supports what I'd emotionally like to believe. Can you say the same? I notice that you only pick out small parts of my argument that you feel you can refute and then ignore the rest.
Yes, the study it was based on a lot of flawed assumptions, but ultimately right now it DOES goes a bit more to produce a hybrid - that's indisputable.
Here's why I drive a hybrid:
1. We need to wean ourselves from oil; that's also indiputable; the timeframe is the only debate.
2. I'd rather see the process go slowly without major economic upheaval, than in the form of a catastrophic shock - allowing technological substitutes to develop. Free markets are wonderful, but imperfect; Often they react too late, and operate on flawed information. It's like an autopilot - it will only be stable within a certain window of control inputs and weather. If you go outside that window (like a thunderstorm), it will fail miserably.
3. Right now we have very few good alternates to oil.. it will take a very long time to retool our infrastructure. Some industries (like aviation) have zero alternates. And Branson's coconut oil stunt did more to reinforce this point that to dispel it.
I don't drive a hybrid to save money; it doesn't - or at least not not much. I drive one because I figure that we should encourage the industry to go the right way - to start developing those substitutes. The current crop of hybrids are a stepping stone.
The next crop (GM volt and similar) will actually start to make a difference and actually start to reduce oil consumption. They will be expensive, probably not save a lot of money, but I'll support GM and buy one - whatever it costs - just to encourage them.
It's the same reason that I don't want to oil prices to drop much... we need a sustained economic incentive to allow substitutes to develop.
And by the way... I'm not an environmentalist. I hunt, I fish, I thinks seal-hunting is fine and I think Kyoto is seriously flawed. But that doesn't mean that there are arent some real issues there; there are some big problems on the horizon. I think the greenhouse effect is probably real - but I'd also bet that we'll have bigger problems to deal with before things really start to heat up.
You make some good points SteveM. That is probably why I pick and choose to disagree with the ones I don't agree with.
I have one comment about "global warming.” I live at the southern tip of Lake Michigan and I am well aware of the history of northern Illinois and the ice shelf that extended from the ice cap to central Illinois 50,000 years ago. Man and the Industrial Revolution the past 100 years did nothing for that glacier to recede to north of Ontario. Climate change is a normal cycle of a living planet that has been occurring for millions of years, and this is why the Midwest has a beautiful playground of lakes to enjoy. The fishing is great here.
Try the global warming test on the link below before and let me know what you think.
I'm glad the debate has gotten more civil! It's more enjoyable that way.
I looked at the quiz. It's technically correct, but very deliberately misleading. But, I would say that both sides of this debate are guilty of that particular sin.
If you haven't read it, you might like "State of Fear" by Crighton. It's typical Crighton but it seems to be well researched and raises some interesting questions.
Yes, CO2 is only .4% of the atmosphere - but small things can have major effects. Consider that if that .4% Co2 were magically eliminated every plant on earth would die within days or weeks.
I also agree that increased CO2 level is not a major problem... it's the rate of change that's the problem. The events you're talking about are very slowly progressing. What people are presently doing is not.
Given enough time, various CO2 sinks (plant biomass, algae, etc..) will bring the CO2 back down to equilibrium. This has happened in the past during other natural CO2 shock events - like a major meteor impacts or really major volcanic event.
When this happens very quickly there are a lot of species that cannot adapt quickly enough to deal with rapid changes in local conditions - warmer, cooler, drier, wetter, whatever. So, you get a large scale die-off. If it happens slowly, the species can adapt their ranges (or their physical characteristics) to suit.
So... it's well proven that CO2 is increasing rapidly (by geologic time scale) as a consequence of our actions. And it's fairly well proven that this will increase global mean temperature by some amount - how much is very uncertain.
What's not known, is how this will impact us - the ecosystem is extraordinarily complex and we're not good at modeling it. Will we wind up losing some of the food species we depend on? A lot of fish are very temperature sensitive. Will we wind up with loss of mountain glaciers that feed some of our major rivers that provide the water to our cities?
The earth will be just fine... It's people that I'm not so sure about. If you crap in your backyard long enough, it's eventually going to stink. But the flies and mushrooms will be happy!
